National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre blasted "opportunists" he said are trying to "exploit tragedy for political gain" during a highly politicized speech Thursday pushing back against calls for gun control.

LaPierre, without a whiff of irony, railed against "socialists" who "hate individual freedom" and blasted the media, the FBI and those behind sincere calls for gun-related legislation in the wake of last week's tragedy that left 17 people dead at a Florida high school.

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His rabble rousing fell short at the Conservative Political Action Conference until he retreated to familiar targets including Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo.

"What they want is more restrictions on the law-abiding," he said. "They want to sweep right under the carpet the failure of school security."

LaPierre — who earns more than $1 million a year and lives in exclusivity among lawmakers and lobbyists in Washington — painted gun control activists and the politicians who support them as out-of-touch.

"The elites don't care not one wit about America's school system. And schoolchildren," he said. "Their goal is to eliminate the Second Amendment and our firearms freedom so they can eradicate all individual freedoms."

"You are one of the people responsible for this massacre and for all the massacres before," he said of LaPierre during a City Hall press conference.

"It's stunning to me that in the aftermath of the tragedy in Florida there's not a hint of penitence in the leadership of the NRA. There's not the slightest willingness to say that they have been wrong all these years and that they bear some responsibility for what happened," the mayor added.

The NRA has faced intense criticism in the wake of the Feb. 14 massacre in Parkland, Fla., where a 19-year-old opened fire on his former classmates with an AR-15.

Students across the country are calling for stricter gun control laws and organizing a movement that has gained a national following.

Mayor de Blasio ripped LaPierre, saying he's is among the people responsible for school massacres. (Susan Watts/New York Daily News)

Gov. Cuomo took the assault from the gun advocate in stride, boasting about New York's strict firearm laws.

"If Wayne LaPierre is attacking you, you know you're doing something right," Cuomo said. "As a father and a gun owner, I think it would be nice if the NRA listened to the millions of children across this country who are asking the President and the GOP Congress to stop this senseless gun violence.

"Too many lives have already been lost because the NRA and people like Wayne LaPierre want to sell more guns," he added.

LaPierre accused the kids calling him out of being pawns for liberals and "socialists" looking to strip the rights of gun-loving Americans.

"Socialism is a movement that loves a smear," he said. "Socialism feeds off of manipulated victims."

Family and friends mourn victims of Florida high school massacre

President Trump applauded the outspoken Second Amendment advocate and his NRA colleagues, calling them "patriots" in a tone-deaf tweet moments before the lobbyist took the stage.

"What many people don't understand, or don't want to understand, is that Wayne, Chris (Cox) and the folks who work so hard at the @NRA are Great People and Great American Patriots," he wrote.

Trump later echoed LaPierre, saying he wants to arm teachers, but added that he's open to limiting the age of those who can buy assault-style weapons and pushing for comprehensive background checks.

LaPierre called "gun-free zones" like schools easy targets for shooters, comparing them to jewelry stores and banks with armed security.

That's a far cry from comments he made at the NRA's 1999 convention.

Front page of the New York Daily News for Dec. 22, 2012 about Sandy Hook massacre. (New York Daily News)

"We believe in absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools. That means no guns in America's schools. Period," he said at the time.

He repeated his infamous comment, made after the Sandy Hook tragedy, that "to stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun."

But he failed to mention that there was an armed guard at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week. There was also an armed police officer present when two teens killed 15 people and wounded 23 others at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.

LaPierre played to the crowd at CPAC by warning of a dystopian future that he said could be set in motion if gun control efforts succeed.

"For them it's not a safety issue, it's a political issue. They care more about control and more of it," he said, referring to Democrats as "so-called new European socialists."

"They hide behind labels like Democrat, left wing and progressive to make their socials agenda more palatable," he added.

Despite the fact that Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White house, LaPierre warned against the power of Democrats — blasting several potential 2020 contenders, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).

"They don't care if their laws work or not," LaPierre said. "They just want to get more laws to get more control over people. But the NRA, the NRA does care."